As an animator, it keeps being difficult to work with editors on animation just because it seems so backwards a process to them! Editing first is just like. A different planet. Definitely will be sharing this one!
Holy moly, I love Bobbie and Bill so much. Their book is maybe the best I read last year and their passion for editing is infectious in this interview.
This is SO inspiring! Ive had such a hard time finding info on what its like to edit for animation, and im so grateful for this resource. Animation editing is definitely where I want to end up. And its true, editing every day really helps. I look back a couple months ago and am shocked at how much I've grown!
Pixar is what inspired me to get into filmmaking in the first place and led me to become an editor, so this was amazing for me to listen to. I have a request for a future guest though. With Across the Spiderverse coming out soon, I'd love to hear from the editor(s) of Into the Spiderverse. Obviously it was more than just them that shaped that movie into what it is, but that movie started a complete shift in the modern animation space and I'd be thrilled to hear any insight they might have about editing such a unique project.
Fantastic interview! Loved hearing the thought process behind Pixar's storytelling. Lots of ideas to digest and implement into my own craft. Thanks for everything you guys do! 😁
Possible to credit the video excerpts you borrow and insert in the podcast? Lots of quick cuts of what looks like a very compelling documentary video, with no credit or attribution in description or video.
They are bonus content from the Bill and Bobbie's book Making the Cut at Pixar. If you buy the book, you get a password protected website with lots of Pixar BTS.
Bobbie and Bill, your powerful words near the end made me tear up. Editing is a hard job. Thank you for showing us the way. Often times we are lost and don't know what choices to make. Thank you for taking care of us.
this youtube channel is so amazing I can't believe y'all dont have millions of followers. Do y'all have a tiktok? would help new people discover it. There's no links to other social media on your youtube channel. Also I feel like y'all could make an amazing video with Colin and Samir!
Pixar cut one of my favorite shots from Toy Story 2 - and I learned this: if you're cutting really good stuff, what's left is amazing stuff! You want to be cutting good stuff! The shot was from Buzz Lightyear's point of view, as he made his way through the ducts of Al's apartment building to rescue Woody. It looked like a video game FPS, with weapon arm moving up and down as he walked, and a complex HUD with numbers, stats, and diagrams constantly scrolling. We don't ever really see the world from Buzz's perspective. But they cut it - and it was a good decision, because that shot dragged the action of that sequence. I learned the pain of doing the right thing. I've carried that lesson ever since. Glad to see it repeated here.
I watch you guys to learn to edit my animations, so when this came up, it was an Insta-click! ☺️ THANK YOU! Edited to add, I'd heard about the order of operations, for lack of a better term, at Pixar before, but this is the first time it really resonated. I will be coming back to this over and over again.
I would say the screenings to test audiences are most instructive - more than any theory. I remember a story one of the directors told that the test screening gave all the children drinks and popcorn - and that the drink straws made a squeak when the kids played with them, and that they played with them when they were bored. "So like the rising volume of crickets, we could easily tell when the story became boring!" One of my favorite stories I heard there! Lol
Actully back then in the old times of cinema, in the non digital age... Editors were involved in thh preproduction of the movie. The director had a closer contact to the editor and would often ask, does it work this way? does it go hand in hand? Can we do this? will it look good in the edit? And the editor would work with the director on the storyboards sometimes and tell him, we are missing a shot here, or there are too many shots in here.
They literally interview the (former) head of the editorial Department at Pixar - who was the coauthor of the book about Pixar editing that they're discussing.
